A BRIEF HISTORY
Islam is the world's second-largest religion, after Christianity, and was founded by the prophet Muhammad based on revelation from Allah through the angel Gabriel in the 7th century AD. These revelations took place over a 22-year period in the cities of Mecca and Medina in today's Saudi Arabia.
Muslims believe that they are part of a single religious tradition that includes Judaism and Christianity. They fully recognize Abraham, Moses, Jesus, the Virgin Mary and other pre-Islamic figures as part of that single tradition.
Islam literally means "to submit or obey." Muslims believe that they submit to a set of divinely revealed laws upon which social and moral codes that govern everyday life are established.
One of every five people is Muslim. Although Islam began in Arabia, more than half the world's 1.2 billion Muslims live in South and Southeast Asia. The most populous Muslim countries are Indonesia, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Nigeria. Only a quarter of all Muslims live in the Middle East. In Europe, Muslims rank as the second-largest religious group in Belgium, France and Germany and the largest in Albania and Bosnia-Herzegovina. More than 6 million Muslims live in the U.S., where Islam is the fastest-growing religion.
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BRANCHES DIFFER ON LEADERSHIP
The two largest sects--Sunni and Shiite--differ little in their basic beliefs about God, prophecy, revelation and the Last Judgment. The first and biggest schism that divided the two main sects grew out of a dispute over leadership.
After Muhammad's death in AD 632, the Sunni majority argued that a caliph, or leader, of the young Islamic empire should be selected from among his followers. A minority advocated leadership within the family circle most familiar with the prophet's thinking and lifestyle, specifically the prophet's cousin and son-in-law Ali. Shiite means "follower of Ali." The Sunnis prevailed.
Today, the two sects still differ on the role of leadership. Sunnis believe that clerics are guides or advisors and that the individual's relationship with God is direct, somewhat comparable to Christianity's Protestant sects. Shiites believe that clerics are empowered to interpret God's will for the faithful, somewhat comparable to Catholicism's view of its more powerful clergy.
